[rkward-users] rkward runnng problem

[Prasenjit Kapat]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Gourab <gourab at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks both of you for the pointers.
> First to answer meik - the version of R was 2.10.0 and it's installed in
> usr/local/bin/R
> The version of rkward is 0.5.2 and it's installed usr/bin/R -
> So for installing R - I downloaded the latest version and first used
> ./configure --enable-R-shlib to configure the package. And then used make to
> compile and then finally make install to install it. I got the instructions
> for this process from a R-ubuntu forum. The instructions also suggested that
> i should do make clean before installing the new version - but I did not do
> that.
> For installing RKWARD I used the options for the sourceforge wiki page(
> using cmake to install)
> Right now the stage I am in is : I uninstalled the R and RKWARD using make
> uninstall. So I believe it's all clean and empty and I can start installing
> it the right way once I know the right way.
> The reason I want to build it from source is
> a. I need to learn how to do this and it is giving me good kicks to do it
> b. I have been suggested to build R from source to ensure that its
> performance is optimized for my system
> I have not deleted the package files manually - I uninstalled using

My suggestions in a nutshell:  install the pre-compiled version of R
and have your *kicks* by compiling rkward from source. So, lets take
things step by step:

1. I am assuming you have no version of R installed right now. The
synaptic removal may have left some config files. Lets "purge"  them.
Open a konsole and type:

dpkg -l | egrep "r-base|r-cran" | grep ^rc

If you dont see any output, you are good to go. If not, type:

sudo dpkg -P $(dpkg -l | egrep "r-base|r-cran" | grep ^rc | awk '{print $2}')

2. Install R from the instructions here (Statlib mirror might be the
nearest for you):
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/

3. Then get the 0.5.2 version of rkward source from here:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=Download_RKWard

4. Follow the compilation instructions here:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=Building_RKWard_From_Source#Building_RKWard_0.5.0_and_above

> synaptic. I did delete a folder called R manually - it was sitting on my
> home folder - and while installing Rkward I needed to create a similar name
> directory (R_LIBS_USER for cmake option) for the new version -so I deleted
> the one with the old version. Is that something i should not have done?

For Rkward, you may only need to remove the rkward directory in
/home/gourab/R/i486-pc-linux-gnu-library/2.10 or whatever the
R_LIBS_USER is defined as. If you remove ~/R then you'll loose all
your locally installed R libraries.

> If you think it's a classic case of a monkey with a gun , I will not try
> installing it from the source and just use the precompiled package. But
> thanks for all the help so far.

Let the monkey learn then ;) Just kidding...

BTW, I strongly believe that a simple ./configure && make && make
install will not make R optimized for your machine. You'll have to
play around with compiler architecture specific optimization switches
for that. So, the epsilon-improvement (if any) by compiling,
especially for readily available pre-compiled binaries, is not worth
it!

Good luck.
-- 
Prasenjit